Walkalong Gliding with Phil Rossoni

Phil Rossoni is a commercial glider pilot who has always been interested in finding ways to share the experience of piloting an aircraft with a wide audience.  I thought his enthusiasm (and directions and videos!) for lightweight gliding aircraft that can be made with museum visitors would be a great thing to share with ExhibiTricks readers.

What's the next best thing to soaring through the skies like birds? Its called Walkalong Gliding where a simple paper airplane seems to hover in perpetual motion on the edge of a piece of cardboard. 

Walkalong Gliding works on the same principles of soaring flight used by all manner of flying creatures to effortlessly take to the skies. The best design for the indoor museum setting is the Tumblewing designed by John Collins aka "The Paper Airplane Guy". 

Everybody gets to build and fly their own glider made from a 1"X4" strip of light newsprint. What's the goal? Keep it flying for at least 30 seconds, longer than the current world record for a tossed paper airplane! It's called the "30 second airborne club". 

Like the first pioneers of flight had to learn, staying in the air for extended periods requires control of the paper airplane. What's the takeaway? Yes try this at home, come back and show everyone you've learned the right stuff! 

To find out more about making lightweight gliding aircraft for yourself or with your museum visitors, check out Phil's book,  Build and Pilot Your Own Walkalong Gliders and his list of Tumblewing Links.

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Stop-Motion Animation Tools and Cheapbook CONTEST Winners!

At the recent Association of Children's Museums conference in Phoenix, Joe Vena, from the Children's Museum of the Arts in NYC, gave a great workshop about "Art and Technology in Creative Learning" with a focus on stop-motion animation.

Two of the tools (one hardware, one software) Joe used in the workshop were great low cost ways to play with tech --- and they were new to me, so I'd thought I'd share them with ExhibiTricks readers.

The hardware tool is a relatively inexpensive USB camera to plug into computers to capture imagery called the IPEVO Point 2 View (P2V) Camera.  It's really easy to use and robust enough to hold up to being the primary tool for kids' workshops.

The software tool is iStopMotion by Boinx Software.  The software seems fairly intuitive to use, and a nice feature of iStopMotion is the "live preview" with a semi-transparent onion skinning effect that lets you see what your next step would look like before capturing the frame.

So check out the IPEVO and Boinx websites to grab some tools to get started with your own stop-motion animation projects!


Cheapbooks Greatest Hits CONTEST RESULTS

I recently highlighted the newly released Cheapbooks Greatest Hits in an ExhibiTricks post and held a contest in which two lucky folks would win a free digital copy of this fourth volume of the Exhibit Cheapbooks.

Honestly, after reading the heart-felt stories of existing and emerging museums trying their best to stretch their exhibit dollars, I've decided to award prizes to TEN lucky winners instead of two!   I'll be sending out emails to everyone who entered to let them know whether they won or not.  Thanks again to everyone for entering, and for your interest in the Cheapbooks.

Even if you didn't enter (or win!) the contest, you should order your own copy of Cheapbooks Greatest Hits by heading over to the ASTC website.

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Design Inspiration: Project RE_

"Using familiar things in unfamiliar ways" is one wonderful definition of creativity.

Project RE_ is a great place to get ideas that play with the notions of upcycling (increasing the value of broken or unused objects by giving them new functions or forms) and creative reuse.

Project RE_ was started by Samuel Nelson Bernier,  an industrial designer from Quebec as a university research project.

There are some really novel DIY ideas on the  Project RE_ site, and each idea features a materials list and instructions for you to make your own "upcyclables"!

So look through your junk drawer or attic and head over to Project RE_ to get inspired to start your own project!


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Ponoko + Google SketchUp = Your Personal Design Factory!

The fine folks at Ponoko (the company that creates real stuff from your digital designs) have a contest going with the equally fine folks from Google SketchUp.

The aim of the contest is to create "how-tos" or "Instructables" that show how you can use your Google SketchUp designs to create real stuff using Ponoko's tools.  (Ponoko basically lets you run your own personal factory to fabricate your digital designs into a variety of physical materials and finishes.)

You can find out more about the contest here.  But hurry! The entry deadline is December 17th.

Even if you don't enter the contest, it is worthwhile for any museum maker or designer to check out both Ponoko and Google SketchUp.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Exhibit Designer's Toolkit: Creating The Sounds of "Gore and Squidge"

Now that many museums are creating multimedia projects in-house, being able to make your own sound effects can really help stretch tight budgets.  (Plus sound effects demos and workshops make great Halloween season activities as well!)

The Guide To Sound Effects is a simple how-to primer for creating all sorts of sound effects. Arranged alphabetically and containing everything from "flying bats" to "gore and squidge" the guide gives some simple hands-on techniques for creating interesting sounds for your projects.

But where do you go if you need a specific digital sound file of an umbrella opening, or an elephant's roar?  A great resource for your digital sonic searches is the FindSounds website. It's sort of like Google for people in search of particular digital sound files.

Simply enter a search term, like "umbrella" and FindSounds does the rest. You can additionally set parameters for particular file types, file size and sample rate as well.

Do you have a favorite web-based exhibits or multimedia tool that you couldn't live without?  Let us know your favorites in the "Comments" section below!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like movies!)

Plastics 101: Free Online DIY Videos

Michael Flynn of Fun Exhibits was kind enough to point out this great set of free online instructional videos from TAP Plastics.

Included in the collection are videos showing how to make silicon molds, glue plastics, and make a plastic bender. Great stuff!

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Design Inspiration: Afrigadget.com

I love people who design wonderful things with limited resources. I really think that when you have to struggle a little, you come up with better, more creative solutions (instead of just throwing money at problems in an effort to make them go away.)

One of my new favorite museum design inspirations in this regard is the AfriGadget blog. Most of the AfriGadget postings outline how an African entrepreneur or tinkerer used simple materials to address a problem facing their local community. So you'll find out about such items as bamboo bicycles and low-tech energy generation devices.

AfriGadget reminds me of an excellent exhibition that I saw in NYC at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, Design For The Other 90%, that I reviewed for ExhibitFiles.

What other sites or resources do you use to make "more from less"?
Post your answers in the Comments section below!

Exhibit Maker's Toolbox: United Nuclear

As a follow-up to my "Dangerous Science" post, several folks asked about United Nuclear.

Once you get past their ominous sounding name, the folks at U.N. can provide just about anything a budding mad scientist could desire: GIANT neodymium magnets, check. Radioactive materials, check. The types of chemicals that create wonderful explosions, check!

Naturally, all of these materials are to be handled judiciously, but aside from the inherent "cool" factor, United Nuclear is worth supporting on general principles since the Office of Homeland Security (among others) have tried to shut them down for making "dangerous" materials available to people.

Exhibit Maker's Bookshelf: Howtoons!

One of my favorite recurring features in MAKE magazine, and on the Web, is Howtoons.

Howtoons is sort of a graphic novel/manga/Mr. Wizard mashup that gives you instructions for creating a fun (usually sciency) DIY project. If you go for that sort of thing (and if you're already reading this blog, I guess you do!) you should check out the Howtoonsbook, which is a paperback collection of Howtoon projects.

A perfect gift for the big or little maker in your life (including yourself!)